Everything
by DarkHeartInTheSky
Summary: 12.09 Coda: "I gave everything for you," Cas's voice was strangled, "and you would leave me with nothing." Pre-destiel or gen, your choice.


It was only another two hours back to the Bunker, but it was the longest two hours of Dean's life. Nobody spoke. Nobody dared to make even subtle moves. Nobody turned on the radio. They all sat there in the suffocating silence, lungs constricted with the words they dared not speak. The hair on the back of Dean's neck stood ramrod straight. It felt like there was electricity in the air.

Cas's hands trembled the entire the time.

Dean watched out of the corner of his eye and swallowed the large lump in his throat. He wanted to reach out and wrap Cas's hands in his own, steady them somehow—but he didn't. He was afraid of breaking the torturous silence and creating something worse in its place. He was afraid of breaking Castiel, worse than he already was.

Castiel's eyes were glassy with unshed tears.

Dean looked out his own window. It was past midnight now, pitch dark all around. Not a single street light to illuminate the roadway. There was nothing to see this deep into the Midwest, but Dean looked out regardless. If Dean continued to look at Castiel, he might cry on Cas's behalf.

When Mom pulled back into the Bunker, Dean did not feel the wash of relief he'd fantasized back in that Nothingness. He dreamed of coming home after so long and being wrapped in a feeling of rightness. He could sleep in his own bed, surrounded by his books and knickknacks and the safety that came with the Bunker. He could melt under the wondrous pressure of a hot shower. He could cook and eat his own food in his kitchen. He would be surrounded by his family. The Bunker had been home for years now.

But when they got there, it didn't feel like there was anything worth celebrating.

Castiel left the car first. Dean's heart ached to go after him, to not let Castiel be alone right now, but he couldn't make his feet move. His desire must have shown plain on his face, for Sam cleared his throat.

"Just…just let him be alone right now." Sam's voice was scratchy and quiet from disuse. Sam said it so quietly, but it still seemed so loud.

"You sure that's a good idea?" Dean could barely force out a whisper. His ears still rang with the enormity of the intense, raw emotion that had latched itself to Cas's voice. The animalistic desperation that swam in Cas's eyes was imprinted in Dean's mind.

"No," Sam said, and Dean snorted. "But he needs time to cool off…and we need to figure out what we're going to say."

Dean chewed on his lip. Slowly, Dean, Sam, and Mary got out of the car. Mary's eyes were glued to the path Castiel had disappeared in.

"I didn't realize…"

"Realize what?" Dean asked.

She folded her arms across her chest. "That he felt like that."

Dean didn't have a response for that. He supposed he hadn't known that, either. Cas was his best friend, yes. He was a part of this family. But Dean hadn't thought of what that stupid deal might do to Cas. To get the Winchesters back, only to lose one of them again, hours later…

Mary pinched the bridge of her nose. "God, I'm such an idiot."

"Why?"

They made their way into the Bunker slowly. Dean paused by a closed door—the one that led to Cas's room. None of the bedroom doors had locks on them, for safety purposes. He could go in. He could just turn that handle and walk right in.

But he was a coward.

The trio made their way to the War Room. It looked untouched, abandoned, and Dean's throat swelled with the thought that Cas could live here, stay here, for consecutive weeks and not leave behind a trace of his existence.

Sam and Dean turned to Mary, who leaned over one of the tables.

"Why are you an idiot?" Sam asked.

Mary chewed on her lip. "I…When he told me what happened, I snapped at him."

Dean felt his heart drop into the pit of his stomach, and he didn't even need to hear the rest of his mom's story to know the outcome.

"I blamed him for what happened to you guys," Dean couldn't look at Mary as she continued to speak, "And when he tried to explain himself, I told him to stop making excuses."

Dean exhaled and rubbed his face.

"I apologized," Mary added. "But, I don't think it mattered."

Dean looked at Sam, a thousand words passing between them in that moment.

"He wasn't with us because we told him to take the woman somewhere safe and to break it to her that she's knocked up with Satan's baby." Dean felt Mary's gaze burning into his back.

"I don't understand," she said. "Why have him do that? Why not you or Sam? I understand he's your friend, Dean, but he's not...conversational."

"People open up to him," Sam said. Dean would gladly let Sam finish this conversation because he didn't think he could do it. His best friend was just yards away, having an actual mental breakdown, and here he was with his thumb up his ass, hiding like a coward.

"When he's gone on hunts with us, Mom—people, they see me and Dean, they're tight lipped, they refuse to talk. Cas? They talk to him, no prompting. Little kids aren't scared of him the way they are with us. Cas is sincere in everything he does, and I think people recognize that in him and that's why they go to him. That's why Cas went with the woman."

Mary sighed and Dean finally found he courage to look her in the eyes again. He believed she really was sorry for snapping at Cas. But Dean felt she had no right to do that. How could she dare accuse Cas of leaving them, when that was exactly what she did? How could she look Cas in the eye and dare utter "You should have been there" when _she_ should have been there? Cas took everything to heart and soul. Stuff that wasn't remotely anywhere near his fault, he'd feel guilt for, if someone told him it was his fault.

It was past two in the morning. Being stuck in an empty, windowless cell for weeks had shot Dean's circadian rhythm to Hell, but he couldn't go to sleep, not until he talked to Cas.

Still in the prison garb, Dean couldn't bother to change just yet. He pushed past Mary and Sam, barely muttering an "excuse me" and then went to Cas's room.

His breath was caught in his lungs as he stared at the door. He made a fist and gently knocked on the door. "Cas? Cas, I'm coming in." He pushed the door open and stepped inside, closing the door behind him.

His blood froze inside his veins as he surveyed Cas's room. There was a bed, and nightstand with only a lamp, and that was all. Four gray walls, not a single window, a plain dreary, green blanket thrown over the mattress, one lamp, and nothing else.

Cas's room was as Nothing as the jail cell Dean just escaped.

Dean swallowed and stepped inside. Cas was braced against the far side of the bed, staring at the wall. Dean's footsteps were deafening.

"Hey," Dean said when he got around the bed. "Mind if I sit here?"

Cas turned to meet his eye. Dean fought to keep his face impassive. Cas looked more wrecked here than he did in the car. His eyes were bloodshot, dry tear tracks reflecting off the light from the dim lamp bulb.

Cas didn't answer, but Dean sat next to him anyways.

"Thank you," Dean said. Every word was so important, so delicate right now, and Dean didn't want anything to shatter. "For saving Mom."

Cas's shoulders heaved with his breathing. Dean licked his lips and stared at his hands. The cut on his palm hadn't healed yet, remaining an angry red line against his skin.

Cas was right. It was a stupid deal. Dean felt pathetic. He lasted thirty years in Hell. Last thirty years being disemboweled routinely, having hooks dug into tendons, teeth yanked out and regrown—and lasted only six weeks being stuck in an empty room and left alone.

He'd been desperate. Desperate to see the outside world just one more time, desperate to know that Sam would be okay. It didn't matter so long as Sam got out okay.

But bearing witness to Cas's breakdown, being seated here beside him, fighting so hard to keep himself together…it did matter.

Sometimes Dean forgot how vulnerable Castiel actually was. Cas cared, Dean always knew that. But in Dean's mind, Cas was still the same, impassive, distant being he was when they first met.

God, he was such an idiot.

"I gave…" Cas began. Dean jerked in surprise. He hadn't been expecting Cas to speak. "I gave everything for you." Cas swallowed and Dean shrank away, wishing he could disappear, because Cas's voice was hitched, and his shoulders were shaking, and there was no rage in his voice, just hopelessness.

"I gave everything for you," he repeated. Dean wished Cas would've punched him in the stomach instead of saying that. "And you were just going to throw your life away, without a care? Without a thought for what it would do to me?"

Dean recoiled. This was what happened when he always put Sam first. Everyone else around him shattered.

Cas turned to face Dean. He was crying. Throughout the years they'd known each other, Cas had seen Dean cry several times. Dean had never seen Cas cry once. He'd seen Cas almost cry before—seen Cas stiff as a statue, eyes unfocused and lips trembling—but the tears never fell before.

"This family is all I have, Dean. The angels, they scorn me. They'd spit on me before they'd talk to me. My own father won't even _look_ at me. He'd—He'd rather sit and make amends with _Lucifer_ than tell me anything—"

"Your dad's a dick," Dean said, voice quiet and even, despite the tiny bulb in the lamp emitting a horrendous screeching sound.

"I prayed and believed in Him, even when no one else did, when everyone else thought he was dead, I still had faith and He didn't care—you were right along, Dean,-He doesn't care about any of us."

The lightbulb grew brighter and brighter, the screeching raising in pitch.

"You don't need Him. You're better than He ever could hope to be."

"I know I'm not as powerful as I used to be," Cas continued. "Is that why He ignores me? I try to accept who I am, Dean, but it is so hard. I hate that I can't be who you and Sam need—"

"We don't care if you're powerful or not, Cas, you're enough, I promise—"

"I hate that I couldn't save you and Sam on my own. I hate that I failed your mother. I hate that I couldn't save those women in Missouri. I hate that I had to ask the British Men of Letters for help. I hate the way they look at me—like, like I'm something to be studied. I'm not an angel, and I'm not human, I'm, I'm…" Cas was near babbling near, and Dean fought to get a word in, anything to stop those horrible thoughts that plagued Cas day and night.

"You're human, Dean, you, and Sam, and your mother. It is inevitable that one day, you will die. Your body will simply cease to function, and you will die and then I will have _nothing_ left. I can never hope to go back to Heaven, at best they'd turn me away, and at worst they'd send me to the Pit—"

"I would never let that happen. Sammy and me, we'd raise a storm from behind the Pearly Gates."

"—It is inevitable, so I wish you wouldn't keep trying to die sooner than later. Because I'd rather later."

The lightbulb exploded, hundreds of tiny shards flying towards the ceiling, clattering as they hit the ground. Darkness enshrouded them and Dean struggled to remain calm. He wasn't in that cell, full of Nothing. He was in the Bunker, with Castiel. And Castiel needed him right now.

Castiel pulled his knees to his chest and buried his face between them, body wracked by violent sobs.

Dean wanted to pull Cas towards him, but he was unsure of how Cas would react. Would Cas lean into him? Or would Cas just push him away?

He had to do something.

Slowly, slowly, like he was approaching a terrified animal, Dean reached out and put a hand on Cas's shoulder. Cas didn't react, so Dean reached over and touched Cas's other shoulder.

"C'mon, come here, it's okay, buddy." He was able to effortlessly pull Cas towards him, like he was nothing more than a sack of flour. Cas's face pressed into the crook of Dean's neck.

"I gave everything for you," Cas's voice was strangled, "and you would leave me with _nothing._ "

Nothing. The word struck Dean in the face. Six weeks of nothingness and he lost his mind. He imagined Cas, alone in this room full of nothing, with no one.

Dean pressed his nose into Cas's hair and rubbed at Cas's back. Cas was trembling. Dean's neck was wet. He wanted to say something, anything, to stop those horrible words that kept tumbling out of Cas's mouth, but he couldn't. Cas was right.

He was an idiot. He tore apart an angel piece by piece, destroyed this warrior of God, and this is what Dean created. This is the Castiel who threw himself at Lucifer because he was that desperate. How could Dean have thought that a simple, "Thank you, you're our brother" would've made everything okay?

Castiel was not okay and he hadn't been for a long time, and a large part of it was Dean's fault.

"We're gonna do better Cas, I promise," Dean said. "Sam and me, and Mom. You're important to us, too."

Exhaustion was beginning to set in. Cas's muscles turned to jelly, only upright by leaning against Dean.

"You're so important," Dean's tongue felt fat in his mouth. "I'm an asshole, you know that by now, right? I don't use my brain. I wasn't thinking when I made that deal, it was a stupid deal. I'm so lucky to have a friend like you to look after my moronic ass. But we're gonna do better, I promise."

They sat together in silence for several moments. Finally, the Nothingness, and the darkness, were too much for Dean. He rubbed at Cas's back.

"C'mon," Dean said. "Let's get somewhere more cozy, huh? We need to get you some things to decorate this place. Make this place more a room and less…" Jail cell died on the tip of Dean's tongue.

Dean rose to his feet, pulling Cas along with him. Cas pressed close to Dean's side. Dean could feel Cas's intense body heat even through all their layers.

"Watch the glass," Dean said, leading Cas to the door. "I'll clean it up later."

Dean drug Cas wordlessly through the hallway until they made it to Dean's room. Dean pressed the door open and inhaled the air. It smelled musty from being uninhabited for so long. Everything was as Dean left it, not a single thing out of place. It felt like home.

"Lay on the bed," Dean said, pulling Cas inside the room. It spoke volumes that Cas didn't fight him, or argue with him. He fell onto the bed and turned onto his side. Dean pulled off Cas's shoes and ran his fingers through Cas's dark hair.

"I won't leave you with nothing, Cas. I promise." Dean grabbed the blanket off his desk chair and laid it out over Cas. "Just rest up. You did good today."

And Dean walked out, leaving the door cracked open. He went back into the War Room, where Sam and Mary sat at a table, cups of hot chocolate before them.

"Made you some," Mary said, pushing the cup towards him.

"Gonna need something stronger than that," Dean said, but he took the cup anyway.

"How is he?" Sam asked.

"Sleeping," Dean said. "He's exhausted."

Sam tapped his fingers against the table. "So…about that disaster of cosmic proportions?"

"We'll figure it out," Dean said.

"We don't even know what the disaster's going to be."

"Doesn't matter. We'll figure it out, same as we always do." Whatever it was, Dean would defeat it all by himself if he had to. He wouldn't let anything happen to Cas.

Sam and Mary shared a look Dean couldn't read.

"What?"

"Is he going to be okay?" Mary asked.

Dean paused and took a sip of the hot chocolate. It was actually cold by now, but he forced it down anyway. "He takes care of us," Dean said, "this time we're going to take care of him."

Cas gave up everything for him.

Now it was Dean's turn to do the same.


End file.
